Investigating human and megafauna co-occurrence in Australian prehistory: Mode and causality in fossil accumulations at Cuddie Springs     

Melanie Fillios  Judith Field  Bethan Charles 《Quaternary International》2010,211(1-2):123-143

Human arrival in Sahul – Pleistocene Australia and New Guinea – has long been argued as the catalyst in the decline and disappearance of a suite of extinct animals referred to as megafauna. The debate concerning causality in Sahul is highly polarised, with climate change often cited as the alternative explanatory model. On continental Australia, there are few datasets available with which to explore the likely processes leading to the extinction events. At the present time, there is one site in New Guinea (Nombe Rockshelter) and one on continental Australia (Cuddie Springs) where the coexistence and temporal overlap of humans and megafauna has been identified. The Cuddie Springs Pleistocene archaeological site in southeastern Australia contains an association of fossil extinct and extant fauna with an archaeological record through two sequential stratigraphic units dating from c. 36 to c. 30 ka ago. A taphonomic study of the fossil fauna has revealed an accumulation of bone in a primary depositional context, consistent with a waterhole death assemblage. Overall the faunal assemblage studied here (n: 8146; NISP: 1355) has yielded little direct evidence of carnivore damage or human activities. Post depositional factors such as physical destruction incurred by trampling, compaction of sediments, and/or the hydrological status of the lake at that time have played important roles. As the only known site on continental Australia where megafauna and humans co-occur, the Cuddie Springs faunal assemblage yields equivocal evidence for a significant human role in the accumulation of the fauna here. At the present time there is no evidential basis to the argument that humans had a primary role in the extinction of the Australian megafauna. The first colonisers are likely to have preyed upon those few species known to have persisted to this time, but their impact may have been restricted to the tail end of a process that had been underway for millennia prior to human arrival.  相似文献   

A new insight into land use classification based on aggregated mobile phone data   总被引：6，自引：0，他引：6  

Tao Pei  Carlo Ratti  Shih-Lung Shaw  Ting Li  Chenghu Zhou 《International journal of geographical information science》2014,28(9):1988-2007

Land-use classification is essential for urban planning. Urban land-use types can be differentiated either by their physical characteristics (such as reflectivity and texture) or social functions. Remote sensing techniques have been recognized as a vital method for urban land-use classification because of their ability to capture the physical characteristics of land use. Although significant progress has been achieved in remote sensing methods designed for urban land-use classification, most techniques focus on physical characteristics, whereas knowledge of social functions is not adequately used. Owing to the wide usage of mobile phones, the activities of residents, which can be retrieved from the mobile phone data, can be determined in order to indicate the social function of land use. This could bring about the opportunity to derive land-use information from mobile phone data. To verify the application of this new data source to urban land-use classification, we first construct a vector of aggregated mobile phone data to characterize land-use types. This vector is composed of two aspects: the normalized hourly call volume and the total call volume. A semi-supervised fuzzy c-means clustering approach is then applied to infer the land-use types. The method is validated using mobile phone data collected in Singapore. Land use is determined with a detection rate of 58.03%. An analysis of the land-use classification results shows that the detection rate decreases as the heterogeneity of land use increases, and increases as the density of cell phone towers increases.  相似文献   

Late glacial and Holocene environmental change in the Lake Baikal region documented by oxygen isotopes from diatom silica   总被引：4，自引：0，他引：4  

David W. Morley  Melanie J. Leng  Anson W. Mackay  Hilary J. Sloane 《Global and Planetary Change》2005,46(1-4):221

We investigate late glacial and Holocene climate change recorded in Lake Baikal using the oxygen isotope composition of diatom silica (δ¹⁸O_DIAT). Evaporation from the lake is minor, and the temperature fractionations of δ¹⁸O are unable to explain variations in the δ¹⁸O_DIAT record alone. Isotopically, low meltwater input from glaciers may have some influence on δ¹⁸O_DIAT, but the assumed periods of climatic warming and wastage do not coincide with large shifts in δ¹⁸O_DIAT. There is a gradual oxygen isotope lowering from 27.0‰ to 20.6‰ over the late glacial, while, during the Holocene, δ¹⁸O_DIAT values return to relatively high values. Previous studies of the modern oxygen and hydrogen isotope composition of Lake Baikal's inputs reveal that fluvial input to the lake's North Basin are isotopically lower than fluvial input from South Basin rivers. This north–south gradient of river δ¹⁸O and δD is mainly due to the greater input from isotopically low winter precipitation in the north and isotopically higher summer precipitation in the south. As a result, the δ¹⁸O_DIAT record from Lake Baikal can at least in part be explained by varying input from these sources related to seasonal changes in precipitation. Changes in atmospheric conditions may have a role in altering seasonality and the distribution of precipitation over Lake Baikal's catchment. A feedback mechanism is well known linking higher Eurasian spring snow cover extent (ESSC) to the development of anticyclonic conditions and low precipitation the following summer in the areas south of Lake Baikal. A simultaneous increase in the importance of depleted water (snowmelt) input from the north and decreased enriched summer precipitation in the south is needed to explain depletions in δ¹⁸O of lake water and subsequently δ¹⁸O_DIAT during colder periods. The opposite of this situation is required to enrich lake water during warmer periods. The analysis of δ¹⁸O from diatom silica is a useful proxy for environmental change, especially in lakes, like Lake Baikal, where carbonates are absent or diluted. However, analysis must be based on near pure diatom samples as even trace amounts of silt can have a dominating effect on δ¹⁸O_DIAT values.  相似文献   

A high-resolution Late Glacial to Holocene record of environmental change in the Mediterranean from Lake Ohrid (Macedonia/Albania)     

Jack H. Lacey  Alexander Francke  Melanie J. Leng  Christopher H. Vane  Bernd Wagner 《International Journal of Earth Sciences》2015,104(6):1623-1638

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Fast identification of bound structures in large N-body simulations     

J. Weller  J. P. Ostriker  P. Bode  L. Shaw 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2005,364(3):823-732

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Bulk organic δ13C and C/N ratios as palaeosalinity indicators within a Scottish isolation basin     

Elizabeth A. V. Mackie  Melanie J. Leng  Jeremy M. Lloyd  Carol Arrowsmith 《第四纪科学杂志》2005,20(4):303-312

Microfossils in isolation basin sediments are frequently used to reconstruct sea‐level change, but preservation problems and non‐analogue situations can limit their usefulness. Here we investigate the potential of stable carbon isotopes (δ¹³C) and C/N ratios from bulk organic matter, as an alternative proxy of salinity within isolation basin sediments from a basin in northwest Scotland. Within the Holocene sediment δ¹³C and C/N are determined largely by the mean weighted values of the predominant source of the organic material. Analysis of modern materials and comparison with the diatom record shows that the marine parts of the sequence are dominated by high δ¹³C and variable C/N. In the fresh water sequences the organic material is a mixture of both freshwater aquatic and terrestrial plant input that have relatively low δ¹³C and high C/N. The application of δ¹³C and C/N ratios in the studied basin in general follow the environmental change recorded by the diatoms and shows the potential of bulk organic matter in the investigation of salinity change in isolation basins. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.  相似文献   

The Qso Hosts I Zw 1 and 3C 48: Prototypes of a Merger-Driven Quasar Evolution?     

Julia Scharwächter  Andreas Eckart  Susanne Pfalzner  Jens Zuther  Melanie Krips  Eva Schinnerer  Johannes Staguhn 《Astrophysics and Space Science》2005,295(1-2):101-106

I Zw 1 and 3C 48 are two neighboring template objects at a later stage of the hypothesized merger-driven evolutionary sequence from ultra-luminous infrared galaxies (ULIRGs) to quasi-stellar objects (QSOs). Since galaxy mergers are assumed to trigger the evolution, it is important to confirm the merger properties of transitionary objects. Using multi-wavelength observations and N-body simulations, the merger histories of I Zw 1 and 3C 48 have been investigated in two separate case studies. Here, the results from both studies are compared and their relevance for the evolutionary hypothesis is discussed.This research is partly based on observations with ISAAC at the Very Large Telescope (VLT) of the European Southern Observatory (ESO) under projects 67.B-0009 and 67.B-0019.  相似文献   

Temporal and spatial variability of cation and silica export in an alpine watershed,Emerald Lake,California     

T. Meixner  J. R. Shaw  R. C. Bales 《水文研究》2004,18(10):1759-1776

A reaction set of possible mineral weathering reactions is proposed to explain observed cation and silica export for the Emerald Lake watershed, a small Sierra Nevada, California catchment. The reaction set was calculated through a stoichiometric mole‐balance method, using a multiyear record of stream flow and snowpack chemical analyses and site‐specific mineral compositions. Reaction‐set calculations were intended to explore how the processes controlling stream cation and silica export depend on differing bedrock mineralogy across the catchment as snowmelt and runoff patterns change over the year. Different regions within the watershed can be differentiated by lake inflow subdrainages, each exhibiting different stream‐flow chemistry and calculated weathering stoichiometry, indicating that different silica and cation generation processes are dominant in wet steep portions of the catchment. Short‐term differences in stream concentrations were assumed to reflect ion exchange equilibria and rapid biological processes, whereas long‐term persistent stream concentration differences in different areas of the catchment were assumed to reflect spatial variability in mineral weathering stoichiometry. Mineralogical analyses of rock samples from the watershed provided site‐specific chemical compositions of major mineral species for reaction calculations. Reaction sets were evaluated by linear regression of calculated versus observed differences between snowmelt and stream‐flow chemistry and by a combined measure. Initially, single weathering reactions were balanced and evaluated to determine the reactions that best explained observed stream chemical export. Next, reactions were combined, using mineral compositions from different rock types to estimate the dependence of ion fluxes on lithology. The seasonal variability of major solute calculated fluxes is low, approximately one order of magnitude, relative to the observed three orders of magnitude variability in basin discharge. Reaction sets using basin‐averaged lithology and Aplite lithologies gave superior explanations of stream chemical composition. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.  相似文献   

Measurement of nitric oxide in the stratosphere between 17·4 and 22·9 km     

B.A. Ridley  H.I. Schiff  A.W. Shaw  L.R. Megill  L. Bates  C. Howlett  H. Levaux  T.E. Ashenfelter 《Planetary and Space Science》1974,22(1):19-24

On 16 March 1973, the York U./U.S.U. chemiluminescent nitric oxide instrument was flown successfully from Hollomon Air Force Base, New Mexico, 32° 50·1′ N lat. The instrument was operated between 17:40 and 22:05UT. Most of the measurements were carried out during three ascent, float and descent cycles between 17·4 and 22·9 km. Within the uncertainty of the measurements no differences were seen among results obtained during ascent, float and descent mode, which indicated that there were no major sampling problems resulting from contamination of the atmosphere. The NO mixing ratio was found to be 0·1 ppb v/v with an accuracy of 60 per cent. No change was observed within this accuracy over the small altitude range investigated.  相似文献   

A policy for tidal energy     

T.L. Shaw 《Marine Policy》1977,1(1):61-69

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